Puzzler 'Order of the Sinking Star' Looks to Be Jonathan Blow's Third Success in a Row - Preview

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Jonathan Blow has brought us great games such as Braid and The Witness; now his next puzzling masterpiece, Order of the Sinking Star, is just a few months away, with a launch due later this year. We got to try out the Steam Next Fest demo early and see how it plays on the Steam Deck, as well as get a taste of some of the 1,400 puzzles that await us in the full release.

Order of the Sinking Star (Demo) - Gameplay Impressions

First off, the puzzle elements (and thus the most important part) of Order of the Sinking Star are, in my opinion, fantastic. There's a large variety of puzzles present in just the demo, which helps each puzzle feel unique, and you'll find yourself having to think in different ways about your environment in order to proceed, something which puzzle games often get stale with.

This is largely thanks to the fact that the game licenses ideas from other puzzle games to use in its own puzzles, with each character you play in Order of the Sinking Star having their own abilities and puzzle-solving skills that you'll need to use, often in combination with other characters, to solve the puzzle.

One character, for example, can reflect themselves in mirrors to teleport around the map, while 3 other characters interact with crystals (and each other) by either dragging, pushing, or swapping places with them, depending on the character. At one part of the demo, you play through the same 4 levels 3 times, but each time with a different character, requiring you to play the puzzles entirely differently because of how each character can interact with the environment. It's great to see the same puzzle being solved in so many different ways. It feels like you're playing several puzzle games at once, and if you're a puzzling fan, you'll have a great time here.

The movement is grid-based, and I did find it a little... fiddly, at times. Occasionally, I would move to an incorrect space or move one too many times, but thankfully, the game has an "undo" button, which allows you to rewind back to the previous move you made, and you can rewind very far back, too, as well as an option to entirely reset the current puzzle. This is very useful, as you can easily make a puzzle unsolvable with a wrong move. Both rewinding and resetting are instantaneous, with no loading times or waiting necessary.

I did find the voice acting a little lackluster, especially for a game that's meant to be based around its narrative. Hopefully, things like that can be polished before the game's eventual release later this year.

Order of the Sinking Star (Demo) - Steam Deck Performance Tested

After forcing the demo to use Proton 10.0-4 instead of the default Proton 9, I was able to get into the game, and then things worked flawlessly from here on out.

Order of the Sinking Star has 3 graphics quality options, and you should go with the lowest option, "Performance", on the Steam Deck, to ensure a smooth experience. The Balanced and Quality options both frequently drop below 30 FPS. In contrast, Performance can hold 30 FPS throughout with a frame rate limit set in SteamOS.

Controls work well, with only a couple of buttons used, along with the thumbsticks or D-Pad. I personally prefer to use the D-Pad for movement as the game is grid-based, but you may use the thumbstick if you wish.

Power draw varies a lot depending on your environment, but Steam Deck OLED players should expect around 3-3.5 hours of battery life in the demo, and Steam Deck LCD users around 2-2.5 Hours.

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